Rise of Prussia is a historical turn based strategy game that takes place between 1756 and 1763. This period is also known as the Seven years war. The battles are mainly between Prussia and Austria of whom you can play as, other European nations will make their appearances later. There are three tutorials and seven campaigns starting with the invasion of Saxony. The remaining campaigns let you choose how early or late in the game you want start and they all end in 1764. The battles mainly take place on land but there are some naval battles as well.

Each scenario has victory conditions and points. By pressing F5 you’ll bring up the scenario objectives which typically include controlling a set number of cities. There are a limited number of turns to complete this goal and if the main objectives are not met, then the winner is determined by victory points. Victory points are awarded by winning battles, controlling cities, boosting morale and so on.

Most of the campaigns allow one hundred or more turns, but there are conditions to win or lose with only a few turns. If the national morale goes above and beyond the morale threshold, the game will end with a victory; the converse applies with a low morale resulting in a defeat.

Highlights:

Strengths: Unique turn based strategy gameWeaknesses: Multiplayer is a hassle since there is no interface for itMoral Warnings: Although this is a war game, there is no battle footage. No blood or violence to be seen here.

There are many factors to consider when engaging in battle or conquering a town. Each town has a different fortification level and the higher it is, the harder it is to besiege. Your units are split up into armies, corps and brigades. You can merge units together, but make sure the leader has high enough rank to command everyone. You can promote leaders but be careful: there is a chain of command and if you break it, there are penalties. Some of the leaders have special abilities that can help you gain an advantage.

Each unit has various attributes including offensive/defensive fire, rate of fire, protection, discipline, cohesion, speed, hide, and more. These attributes determine how well they can fight, evade and besiege towns. When moving armies, they can only move as fast as the slowest unit.

Moving the units around is done by dragging and dropping them to the region you want them to go to. There are buttons to give them orders to move in sync, force march, build warehouses, and so on. You can set how aggressive or evasive you want them to be as well. You can have them avoid battles or automatically besiege towns for you. In order to besiege a town, the fortifications have to be broken down and there has to be a high enough commanding officer nearby.

After a town is pillaged there are very little resources. To add realism in this game your armies must have sufficient food and ammunition reserves. Make sure you have supply carts with you and build depots when you can. To hit an army where it hurts you can destroy their depots!

There is a lot to this game and I’m just giving a brief overview. I’ve only scratched the surface and am not particularly good at complex strategy games. To get a better understanding of the game I highly recommend playing the three tutorials and reading the eighty six page manual.

Rise of Prussia is mainly a single player game. Technically there is multiplayer support for this game, but it’s rather complicated and there is no graphical interface to support it. Basically you have to start a campaign and go into your save files and manually send the opposing TRN file. So if you’re playing as Prussia you have to send the AUS.TRN file. The opponent will have to take the file and put it in their save folder. It’s important that the non-host does not end the turn but instead save the game thus generating an ORD file and send that back to the host to complete the turn. Like I said, it’s possible to play against a human; the question is whether or not it’s worth the hassle.

Other than the lack of a multiplayer interface the rest of the game is well designed and fairly easy to navigate. There are lots of numbers and stats to read on the units and towns which may intimidate casual strategy gamers like me. Giving orders and moving the units around is easy enough though. I haven’t experienced any game crashes, so it seems pretty stable.

Graphically this is a 2D game and not very system resource intensive. The main interface is pretty much a flat map with provinces, towns and army units. The units have different pictures and the leaders all have unique portraits with the funny white wigs. Some of the faces were incomplete so maybe those will get replaced in a patch. The battle sequences show the faces of the leaders and a meter displaying the balance of power.

The background music took some getting used to. I’m not used to listening to classical music in my games. It’s good and fitting for the time period when these events took place. It just made me a little sleepy when playing late at night. The battle noises such as shouts and gunfire add a nice touch.

From an appropriateness standpoint I have no complaints with this game. I didn’t see an ESRB rating so I’m assuming it’s safe for everyone since there is no language or violence to be seen or heard.

Rise of Prussia may not be for everyone since it’s a niche strategy game. Casual RTS gamers may not appreciate all that it has to offer. If you like history or turn based warfare games, I would recommend checking out the demo. The suggested retail price is $9.95 and it’s available at GamersGate.com

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Christ Centered Gamer looks at video games from two view points. We analyze games on a secular level which will break down a game based on its graphics, sound, stability and overall gaming experience. If you’re concerned about the family friendliness of a game, we have a separate moral score which looks at violence, language, sexual content, occult references and other ethical issues.